In Defense of Austria

The following letter was written by Baron Hengelmuller
to Col. Theodore Roosevelt.

ABBAZIA, Sept. 25, 1914.

My Dear Mr. Roosevelt:

Our correspondence has suffered a long interruption.
Your last letter was from July of last year.
I do not know whether you ever received my answer,
by which I thanked you for your preface to my book.
You were in Arizona when I wrote it, and soon after
your return you started for Brazil. At the occasion
of your son’s wedding I sent him a telegram to
Madrid, but I had no chance to write to you because
I had no information with regard to the length of
your stay and your whereabouts in Europe.

Now I write to you at the time of a most momentous
crisis in the world’s history, and I do so impelled
by the desire to talk with you about my country’s
cause and to win your just and fair appreciation for
the same. I wish I could address my appeal to
the American people, but having no standing and no
opportunity to do so, I address it to you as to one
of America’s most illustrious citizens with
whom it has been my privilege to entertain during
many years the most friendly relations.

Since the outbreak of the war our communications with
America are slow and irregular. In the beginning
they were nil. From the end of July to the middle
of August we received neither letters, telegrams, nor
papers. I suppose it was the same with you concerning
direct news from us. Our adversaries had the
field all for themselves and they seem to have made
the most of it. To judge from what I have learned
since and from what I could glean in our papers, the
New York press seem to have written about us and Germany
very much in the same tone and spirit as they did about
you during your last Presidential campaign. I
have seen it stated that The Outlook published an
article in which Austro-Hungary was accused of having
brought about the war through her greed of conquest
and the overbearing arrogance of her behavior toward
Servia. I do not know whether I cite correctly,
as I have not seen the article, and I am aware that
you have severed your connection with The Outlook after
your return from Brazil. I only mention the statement
as an illustration of what I have said above, for
if a review of the standing of The Outlook opens its
columns to such a glaringly false accusation the daily
papers have certainly not lagged behind.

It is natural that our adversaries should be anxious
to win the sympathies of the American people.
So are we. But it is not for this purpose that
I now write to you. Sympathy is a sentiment and,
as a rule, not to be won by argument. What I
want to discuss with you are the causes of this war
and the issues at stake.